THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Eden scrunched around in her bus seat until she was comfortable. Then she deliberately closed her eyes and left Deakin to his own devices. To her own surprise she slept most of the way to San Francisco. Deakin woke her up as they drove through the chain of cities that bordered San Francisco. At one point he motioned to a highway sign that listed the exit for Stanford. They both craned their heads to look but couldn’t see the campus from their side of the bus. They rode clear to the main bus station in the center of San Francisco.
As they wandered out into the waiting room of the station, a young man detached himself from the wall and jerked his head in their direction. He’d thrown his windbreaker over his shoulder and rolled up the sleeves of his tee shirt. A small tattoo of a lizard peeked out from under his left sleeve. Eden flipped a braid over her shoulder to give him a look at her earrings. He glanced interestedly at Deakin and then walked out of the building. Eden and Deakin followed him down the crowded street. The man slipped into a small video shop and then out the back door to a narrow alley running between a long line of two and three story buildings.
Deakin and Eden stepped behind a large trash bin and watched the man talk to a group of street people who’d turned the alley into their home. Then they followed him to a door halfway down the alley. They slid between two cardboard houses and into the back room of a liquor store. The man pointed up the back stairs before he continued into the store.
Eden and Deakin climbed the dirty staircase and found themselves on the top floor of an old apartment building. Years of marginal living had left layers of ingrained dirt and grime all over the floors and the walls. The windows at either end of the long hallway let in only a slight glow. They walked slowly and quietly along the hall and looked at each door in turn. At the far end, they came to a door with a small lizard scratched in the wood under the apartment number. Eden looked inquiringly at Deakin and then shrugged her shoulders. She knocked softly on the door and watched in surprise as it opened slowly. A voice floated out of the gloom of the apartment and said,
“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Alden sent word you’d be heading this way. Lock the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else coming in right now.”
Deakin followed Eden through the fragrant smoke that filled the room and tracked the voice to its source. The glow from the screens of three monitors illuminated the room. Incense burners lined every window sill and the combination of scents gave Eden an immediate headache. She squinted at the young man in front of her and smiled into his green eyes.
“Yikes, Alden didn’t tell me one of you was a girl. If I’d known, I’d have gotten dressed. I guess you’ll just have to put up with my boxers. Pull up a chair and tell me what I can do for you. Alden says it’s dangerous and not to leave a trail.”
Deakin sat down next to the young man and held out his hand. “Deakin, here, and Eden, there. We need a way to reach someone at Stanford without getting caught. Hopefully, she’ll want to meet us and won’t turn us in to the bad guys immediately. What do we do first?”
The young man smiled at Eden and said, “Sam, that’s me. Employee or student at Stanford. Professor, cafeteria worker, maintenance man, chancellor, what?”
“I assume she’s a professor. Mala Goswami Allen. I’m guessing math or science.”
Sam’s fingers drifted over his keyboard but his indecision stopped him. “What kind of bad guys are we talking here?”
“Really bad ones. Lots of them and they have access to everything which probably means government of some kind. They kill people, that’s how bad they are.” “In that case, we’ll try an end run. Will they be watching this woman, tapping her phone, accessing her email?”
“Yes, definitely. We’d like to meet her if possible. Otherwise, a cell phone message or a written message would be fine. I’ll give you the questions to ask her.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful look on his face and made his decision. “Give me the questions now and give me a hook. You know, something that’ll prove I’m in the deal with you. A name or a story, something that will make her believe you’re alive. I don’t know when I’ll get in touch with her. You two go down the hall to room #6. Crash there, take a shower, eat anything you can find. I’ll send someone when I have news.”

Hours later, a soft knock on the apartment door jerked Deakin out of his light sleep. Eden just turned over and pulled the covers over her head. Deakin patted her shoulder and slipped quietly out of the room. A definite crackle of electricity met him as he followed Sam into his room. Sam pushed him into a chair and dropped a few papers into his lap. Deakin picked up the papers and realized the words were printed on fax paper. His eyes misted over as he read the words on the first page. He shook his head and tried again. Sam walked to the window and stared out into a city night still lit by all the colors of the neon rainbow. When he glanced back, he realized Deakin wasn’t reading yet.
“I took a roundabout way of getting in touch with this woman. I ran the phone call through a couple of cell phones and then through a bank of pay phones in Los Angeles. I spoke directly to her and asked her your questions. She sent that answer to you. Let me know if I can do anything else for you. I checked in with Alden and he and the boys are doing just fine. Nobody seems to be searching for him right now so he’s staying under the radar for a while before he powers up the whole network again.”
Deakin nodded to Sam and looked back down at the pages in his lap. He took a deep breath and began reading.
Dear Deakin, I am no longer at the university so do not call me or search there for me. The phone call from your friend took me back in time to a life I’d almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Your beautiful mother Helena was my friend, the best friend of my life. We had such a great time working on the laser project. We were all young and idealistic and believed we were working for the good of all mankind. Our entire focus was on our work, not on the world around us. Dr. Phillips was older than we were but he was more like an advisor than a leader or an employer. He pointed us in the right direction and let us run with the ideas we came up with. We had the best of equipment and supplies and gave no thought whatsoever to the source of the money to pay for it all. Research for the sake of research, pure research was our daily bread. We developed many wonderful research avenues and some of those avenues have borne fruit. Many of the everyday uses of lasers were originated by the six of us. Helena, Alex, Marianne, Andy, Gretchen, and I – we were the core research group. Dr. Phillips watched over us and pushed us in certain directions but he wasn’t part of our group. Daniel Rivers who died along with Helena and Alex was not a scientist like the rest of us. He was a businessman from the beginning. He constantly urged us to consider the monetary aspects of our research. He thought we should market all these laser applications ourselves but the rest of us were so naïve. We were developing products for the common good and we were going to give our discoveries away so everyone could benefit equally.
Helena was a brilliant scientist. We all followed her lead. Alex was very intelligent also but he was more down to earth than Helena. He constantly made sure we considered the practical applications of all our ideas. We all worked happily together until Helena became pregnant. She then developed an entirely different direction for our research. Purely from a research point of view, it was dramatically interesting. She said she came up with the focus of the project when she thought about the development of her baby. She wondered if a laser could reverse the entire process of birth. Instead of the division of cells into more and ever more cells, maybe the laser could do the opposite and melt away cells until the object was back to its original beginning cell. I tried to talk her out of the project but Daniel egged her on. After eighteen months or so, Helena was ready to try out her idea. She had already melted plastic and aluminum into nothing. Now, Dr. Phillips and Daniel wanted us to try the laser on a white rat. Surely an animal could not be vaporized by a laser but, in the interest of science, we had to try. Helena refused to be a part of the experiment and argued long and hard against it. In deference to her feelings, Dr. Phillips experimented on rocks and plants which all disappeared without a trace.
At this point, Helena awoke to the possible uses of her laser and was horrified. Dr. Phillips arranged for a test on the rat while Helena was not around. Six or seven hard-faced men showed up for the test and filmed it. The laser either vaporized or melted the rat into nothingness, not even a smudge on the table. Smiles creased those hard faces as they walked away with the film they’d made. I told Helena about the men and watched the tears stream down her face. She was very quiet for a few days and worked late into the night. Then one morning she and Alex didn’t come to work and we never saw either of them again. The whole lab had been wrecked and the files emptied. All our research had been destroyed. I called Helena’s sister Marina who lived in Seattle. She said she had the baby but Helena had gone back to LA. Helena and Alex had cleared the computers of all the data and attempted to destroy the hardware. They were partially successful. Most of the hard data on the development of the laser disappeared and only fragments were left. The copies they’d made were never found. We were all questioned over and over for days and weeks but none of us knew where Alex and Helena had gone or what they’d done with the data they’d taken.
At the time, we were not allowed to communicate with anyone else and we were kept in strict solitary confinement. My native culture helped me remain sane in the face of an insane situation. Yoga and meditation filled the long silent hours. The others were not as fortunate. Dr. Phillips had a breakdown and spent several years in therapy before he was able to continue working. Andy Yang moved to Los Alamos and tried to duplicate the research but he was not half the scientist Helena had been. Marianne Wolfe is now at the University of Chicago. She suffered fractures in both her legs from some “unknown” accident and walks with metal braces and crutches now. She does no research anymore and teaches graduate level math classes. Gretchen Falk disappeared from sight. I never heard anything about her for years and years until I picked up a textbook she’d written. I tried to call her but she never returned my calls. Through a friend of my husband’s, I sent her a message and she sent me a reply the same way. “Leave me alone. I refuse to revisit the past. Let me live the rest of my life on my own.”
Alex, Helena, and Daniel Rivers all died, supposedly in a car accident. I never thought that was the truth but I had no proof. I hope they died easily but somehow I doubt it. Later, I received a frantic phone call from your Aunt Marina. Someone had taken you away and refused to let her keep you. I tried to comfort her but I fear I was not much help. I had recently been released from custody and my health was fragile. After I recuperated, I tried to call Marina but she was no longer in Seattle. A year later, on the anniversary of Helena’s death, I drove to Seattle and searched for Marina. I found no trace of her whereabouts. Maybe her visa had been revoked and she returned to Russia. Maybe she’s living right across the border in Canada.
Now that you have returned from the dead, I have taken up the search again. A few years ago, I met a man at a conference who knew about our laser research in a general way. He’d heard rumors and he even mentioned your mother’s name. I questioned him about his sources and he gave the name "Marina” as his primary informant. I am now in search of this man. We have kept in touch over the last year or two and have both continued the search for Marina. His name is Ian Nelms and he lives in Chicago. I will look up Marianne while I am there. I never asked her if she knew Helena’s sister.
Be very careful, my child. Please stay alive until I can see you. Your mother once was the dearest person in the world to me. I would like to see how you have grown. Do not try to contact my husband. He is not in the country at this time and has no idea what I am doing.
I will send messages to this number but I will not give you a number to contact me.
Mala Goswami Allen

Deakin looked up as Eden entered the room. Then he passed the pages over to her and sat silently while she read them. She folded the pages into a compact package and slid them into her backpack. She touched Deakin on the shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie. He patted her hand and asked Sam to collect any more messages Mala Allen might send.
“Where do I forward them?”
“Uh, send them to Alden. I’ll always stay in touch with him.”
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“Check on that name she said. The one in Chicago.” He held out his hand to Eden and waited for her to pull the papers out. “Here it is. Ian Nelms. He’s in Chicago somewhere. Could you check him out while we decide where to go next?”
Eden and Deakin leaned against the far wall of the room while Sam hit his keyboard with great energy. “If Mala is covering Chicago, we don’t need to show up there also. We should find a car somewhere and head for Arizona and New Mexico. I don’t know how much we can find out but we have to try.”
Eden nodded her head and then jerked her head in Sam’s direction.
“C’mere, guys. Here’s the man. It says here that he’s the editor of some scientific journal. He’s really somebody big in the science world. Look at all those initials after his name.”
Sam clicked a few times and papers rolled out of his printer. He passed the pages over to Deakin and continued searching. More and more pages appeared until Sam shut down his search.
“If you want more from me, I’ll have to bounce around and come in from a different door. I can’t stay on very long at a time before someone starts to get curious.”
Deakin shook his head and said, “This should be enough for now, Sam. Thanks for everything. One last question and then we’re out of here. Where do we find a car? One that’s good for some highway travel?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. Finally, he wrote an address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Eden. “Talk to Joshua. He’ll help you out.” Then he waved as the two silently slipped out his door and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.
Eden stopped in the pale early morning sunshine and looked around for the address Sam had given them. A short block of tired old shops met her gaze. She and Deakin crossed to the other side of the street and pushed open the door of a dingy secondhand store. They passed between racks of musty clothes into the dim interior of the shop. A disembodied voice called out of the gloom,
“Look around. I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as the man ducked through the curtain across the doorway in the far corner of the room, Deakin spoke. “Are you Joshua?”
“Yes, I am and who might you be?”
A round young man with small hands and feet appeared in front of Deakin and appraised him from head to foot. Then he scrutinized Eden. His gaze stopped at her earrings and he smiled slightly and pulled the curtain aside in welcome. Eden stepped through the doorway first and stopped in amazement. The room in front of her was furnished with beautifully polished antique furniture. Thick oriental rugs covered the scarred floor. She stepped gingerly onto the carpet and tip-toed to a wooden chair positioned next to a dropleaf table. Deakin followed her into the room but he stopped before his feet touched the fringe of the rug. The round man slipped easily through the door and herded Deakin across the room to the small kitchen area. He tweaked Eden’s earring as he bustled past her. Deakin leaned against the refrigerator and smiled as he took a cup of coffee from the man’s tiny hands. He laughed as Eden joined him.
“Are you afraid you’ll break something?”
Eden nodded emphatically and carefully held the china coffee cup in both her hands. Joshua crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Someone obviously sent you here for some reason. What do you want from me?”
Deakin noticed the small ring on Joshua’s pinky. A tiny lizard had been carved along the surface of the ring. “Sam gave us your name and address. We need a car that will make it to Arizona and New Mexico.”
A small frown creased Joshua’s forehead. Eden amended Deakin’s request. “Actually we need to buy a car and it needs to be a clean car no one’s looking for.”
Joshua raised his eyes to the ceiling and mentally ran through his list of available of merchandise. Then he smiled at the Eden and said, “I can find you something. It’ll cost you two thousand dollars, cash. Come back around lunchtime; say 1:00 and it’ll be parked around back. You can pay me when you pick it up.”
Deakin and Eden left by the back door and found themselves in a narrow alley. They turned to the left and headed for the bright sunshine. Deakin grabbed Eden’s arm as they reached the end of the alley and kept her from leaving the shadows. He peered out and then quickly stepped out to join a group of teenagers going into an ice cream shop. Eden followed along behind and grabbed the small round table in the corner. Deakin joined her a short while later and handed her a dripping cone. She laughingly licked the sweet drips from the side of the cone. Then she spoke softly under the cover of taking a bite of ice cream.
“No one’s watching us. Where do we go from here?”
“Find someplace to eat lunch and then come back. What else is there for us to do?”
Eden watched a police car pull to the curb in front of the window and one man stepped out the passenger door. He grabbed the arm of a young boy walking past and pulled him over to the police car. He seemed to be showing him a several pictures but the boy shook his head. Finally the officer let go of the boy’s arm and watched him scurry down the sidewalk. Eden slid her chair farther back in the corner and gestured Deakin to move closer to her. He started to turn his head but she pulled on the front of his shirt.
“Cops out in front. Showing pictures around and asking questions. Might be about us or it might not.”
Deakin nodded in understanding and calmly licked his cone while Eden monitored the sidewalk outside the window. Soon the policeman gave up and the car drove away. A city bus pulled up to the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke and they ran to board it. Several miles down the road they left the bus, crossed the street and entered the open iron gates of a small green park. A children’s playground occupied one end of the park. Rose bushes marched along the blackened iron fence and a grove of trees filled the farthest corner. Benches were dotted around the park and dogs nosed through the trees. Squirrels yelled down at the dogs and jumped from branch to branch in frantic attempts to get away from the canine intruders. Deakin and Eden dropped onto a bench near the trees and huddled together as clouds covered the sun before the ground could warm up in the sunshine. Deakin wrapped his arm around Eden and held her close to his side.
“We have about three hours to wait. Ten more minutes on this cold bench will be long enough for me. There’s a library on that corner. We could at least read the newspapers. What do you say, girl?”
Eden hid her face inside his jacket and shivered. “Anywhere out of this chill. Surely they’ll have a bathroom too. Indoor plumbing would be a definite blessing. Otherwise, I’ll be over there under the trees fighting with the dogs.”
Deakin chuckled under his breath and pulled her to her feet. They entered the library just as another police car pulled up across from the park.